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tion of Lowell has built streets of convenient houses, for the accommodation of the workmen; and nine-tenths of these are occupied by the unmarried. These houses are farmed by the corporation to elderly females, whose characters must bear the strictest investigation, and at a rent just paying a low rate of interest for the outlay. They carry on the business under strict rules, which limit the numbers, and determine the accommodation of the inmates, two of whom sleep in one room. Females, whose wages are 12s. per week, pay 6s. 6d. per week for board and lodging; for males, the wages and cost of board are about 15 per cent. higher. These females are housed, fed, and dressed as well as the wives and daughters of any tradesman in Edinburgh or London. The hours of work at the mills leave them leisure; which some spend in fancy needle-work, so as to increase their income; and all, by arrangements among themselves, have access to good libraries. The amusements are balls, reading-rooms, lectures, and concerts; indeed, all the means of intellectual cultivation are placed within their reach, and full advantage is taken of them. There is an ambition to save money, which they nearly all do; those in superior situations, such as overlookers, have considerable sums in the savings-banks established by the companies owning the mills; the workers in each mill thus putting their weekly savings into the concern, from which they receive interest in money, and so having an interest in the well-doing of the mill itself, and a bond of attachment to its proprietors. In this manner, the capital of all is constantly at work, and provision is made for a possible slackness, which, however, has not yet befallen Lowell. To this place, it is no longer a toilsome journey from Boston. Three-quarters of an hour, in a very commodious railway-carriage, brought me into the centre of the town, when a most interesting sight presented itself. The railway had been pouring in for the occasion upwards of 20,000 persons; and in the streets, all was bustle and harmony; thousands of well-dressed persons--some of the females elegantly so--moving in throngs here and there, all bearing the tokens of comfort and respectability. The occasion of the gathering is called the Mechanics' Fair, held for a fortnight, during some days of which all mill-work is suspended; the attraction consisting of a horticultural and cattle show, and an exhibition of the products of art an
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